TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, OCT. 12, the 285th day of 2018. There are 80 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1973, President Richard Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president.
In 1492 (according to the Old Style calendar), Christopher Columbus’ expedition arrived in the present-day Bahamas.
In 1792, the first recorded U.S. celebration of Columbus Day was held to mark the tricentennial of Christopher Columbus’ landing.
In 1870, General Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Va., at age 63.
In 1942, during World War II, American naval forces defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Cape Esperance. Attorney General Francis Biddle announced during a Columbus Day celebration at Carnegie Hall in New York that Italian nationals in the United States would no longer be considered enemy aliens.
In 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escaped an attempt on her life when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded at a hotel in Brighton, England, killing five people.
In 1986, the superpower meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, ended in stalemate, with President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev unable to agree on arms control measures or a date for a full-fledged summit in the United States.
In 1997, singer John Denver was killed in the crash of his privately built aircraft in Monterey Bay, Calif.; he was 53.
In 2000, 17 sailors were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.
In 2001, NBC announced that an assistant to anchorman Tom Brokaw had contracted the skin form of anthrax after opening a “threatening” letter to her boss containing powder.
In 2007, Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize for sounding the alarm over global warming.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actress Antonia Rey is 91. Former Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, is 86. Broadcast journalist Chris Wallace is 71. Pop/rock singer/ songwriter Jane Siberry is 63. Actor Carlos Bernard and rhythm-and-blues singer Claude McKnight (Take 6) are 56. Rock singer Bob Schneider is 53. Actor Hugh Jackman is 50. Actor Kirk Cameron is 48. Olympic gold medal skier Bode Miller is 41. Actor Brian J. Smith is 37. Actors Tyler Blackburn and Marcus T. Paulk are 32. Actor Josh Hutcherson is 26.